To a Caged Squirrel

Pretty little gleesome thing,
     Leaping, bounding, back and forth, 
Up and down with jump and fling,
     So thou tellest of thy mirth!
Why so merry in thy cell?
     Life in prison should be sad;
Why it is I cannot tell, 
     But I know that thou art glad.

Whirling, whirling, round and round,
    —Life, half liberty to feel—
To thy light and merry bound
     Swiftly flies the prison wheel:
Over such an evil doom,
     Man would brood with sullen hate,
But thy joy dispels the gloom 
     From the brow of dotard Fate.

They have made a little cot,
     Snug and warm, where thou may'st dwell;
And they hear thee murmur not, 
     So they deem that all is well;—
But they cannot know the joy 
     Of a boundless liberty,
Who will thoughtlessly destroy
     Rights immutable in thee.

What if thou art living, truer 
     To the law of life than we,—
Hence o'er ills thou cannot cure
     Never pining needlessly?
Shall we, for that better life,
     Dare inflict a doom the worse,—
With the laws, in open strife, 
     Which control the universe?

But I cannot quite believe
     Thou hast nought but ceaseless joys;
Thou, who might with justice grieve 
     For the freedom man destroys;
If indeed thy star of mirth, 
     In no cloud of sorrow sets, 
Thy philosophy were worth
     Volumes of our vain regrets.

Does there ne'er a heavy sigh,
     Come to heave thy snowy breast,
As before some inner eye
     Re-appears thy forest nest,—
Built within the hollow oak,
     Where the branch was hewn away
By the falling lightning's stroke, 
     And the chisel of Decay?

And hast thou no tear to shed, 
     As thy little ones appear, 
Cuddling in their mossy bed 
     In the Autumn of the year,
While no mother-squirrel's nigh, 
     Gathering butternuts and corn,-
Shivering, crying piteously
     Wondering where thou art gone?

Come there ne'er, at twilight hours,
     Memories of thy native vale;
Where the chesnuts fell in showers, 
     And the acorns poured like hail!—
Or of all the merry band 
     Of the squirrel sisterhood,
Who, with chirp, and leap, and stand, 
     Sported through the leafy wood?

Merry fellow! not a thought
     Comes, thy bosom's joy to tine, 
Leaping, bounding, whirling short, 
     In that prison-house of thine.
Well it is, thy little soul
     Cannot wander from to-day;
Thus, by compassing the whole,
     Flinging present joy away.

Why should thought thy peace destroy?
     O be merry as thou can!
All the liberty, enjoy,
     Left to thee by cruel man;
And we’ll humbly learn of thee,
     When the conquering ill is strong,
How our very lives, may be,
     In forgiveness of the wrong.